Thursday, May 14, 2009

Prior to leaving the beach house in August, we placed a reservation for this year with the agent. In March he returned it, the house had been sold and he would not represent the new owner, who would act on his own behalf. Nathalie contacted the owner and reported to the rest of us that he was increasing the rent by 20%. We talked about it and decided to look around.

Last month Chloe and Nathalie went to the coast and looked at property with the agent we’d worked with. They found a couple of likely places for the same money we’d paid last year, both a bit smaller but the same number of bedrooms, though one had an additional bath. With 10 women sometimes sharing a house an additional bath would be nice. After discussing it again we decided to negotiate with the owner of the initial property who said was amenable to the idea; the negotiation being my job. That was fine, I enjoy the give and take of negotiation and I’m good at it and last weekend Anne Marie and combined business with surfing.

Sunday afternoon, while AM shopped, I met with him. It was a waste of time as he spent most of the time talking about how much interest there was in the property, but I threw him off when I asked if there was so much interest, why it wasn’t rented. Finally I gave him our opening offer, which was last years rental fee. Opening the folder that contained the information on all the properties, I looked over each one and finally his last and then looked at him and gave him the number. He prevaricated for a few minutes and when my phone rang, I excused myself and said I needed to take the call. It was only AM wondering if I was finished, but I ignored her and simply said, “I’m almost finished here, I’ll meet you where we agreed in about 20 minutes.” I thought I saw him flinch but if he did he covered well.

He never made a counter and I guessed he did have another offer, so I ended the meeting and left a bit pissed. Partly because he wouldn’t negotiate when he said he’d entertain an offer, partly because he was a jerk, and partly that I didn’t win a concession.

Earlier this evening while walking Wags, an email came in from him with a counter. “Sorry,” I replied, “We have an agreement, perhaps next year.”